After reading literally hundreds of articles on the Top 10 reviews of 2010 and Analysts forecasts for 2011, I am surprised no on has mentioned  IPv4 running out.  See The Next Y2K Project: The End of IPv4

Yes, with 4.3 billion addresses (some are reserved), we are going to run out.

As of January 4, 2011, only seven of the 255 allocation blocks remain available, or less than 3% of the IPv4 address space!

What this means is the IPv6 migration project better be on the top of your agenda for the CTO, CIO, and VP of IT for 2012.  Those thinking it will go away are just putting their head in the sand.

With the top 3 trends being clearly being Cloud, Social and Mobile, people don’t realize it’s the mobile and tablet explosion that will cause IPv4 addresses to run out.  Especially in emerging markets.

If you are a pure Cloud company that has no external servers, firewalls or switches, my hats off to you.  I am sure Marc Benioff will tip his hat too, but he’ll still nail you for a $10 donation to his Children’s Hospital!

My advice, like the one from Vivek Kundra, the US Chief Information Officer is to switch your public facing devices first, then worry about the internal devices later.

A good migration strategy would be using a virtual device that can handle the “translation” between IPv4 and IPv6.

F5 offers a module that does exactly that: bridge IPv4 and IPv6 networks using  IPv6 Gateway Module by adding it to your BIG-IP network.  Your IPv6 addresses will be virtual.  This isn’t a shameless plug for F5, and if you have come across other devices, please comment below and I will approve the comments regardless of sounding like a sales page.

It’s time we embrace the new technology, just like the end of analog TV transmission.

Or else embrace the Cloud.

DISCLAIMER: I do not have any stock or position for F5.